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FATHER.

Ay, the waned moon through midnight vapours seen,

Fit emblem is of that retrenching light,
Dubious and dim, which to the earliest Patriarchs
Was at the first vouchsafed; a moral guide,
Soon clouded and obscured to their descendants,
Who peopled far and wide, in scatter'd tribes,
The fertile earth.—But this is interruption.
Proceed, my son.

CORDENIUS.

Well, on the lofty summit

We halted, and the day's returning light
On this exalted station found us. Then
Our brighten'd curtain, wearing into shreds
And rifted masses, through its opening gave
Glimpse after glimpse of slow revealed beauty,
Which held th' arrested senses magic bound,
In the intensity of charm'd attention.

FATHER.

From such an eminence, the op'ning mist

Would to the eye reveal most beauteous visions.

CORDENIUS.

First, far beneath us, woody peaks appear'd

And knolls with cedars crested; then, beyond.
And lower still, the herdsmen's cluster'd dwellings,